Firstly thank you for responding to our survey about your local rowing federation. We got great responses. There’s still time to add your voice. Our next step is to invite Federations onto the podcast to talk about masters rowing in their country – if you can introduce us – please do.
What next for you, Reader?
I’ve often thought that a lot of rowing education is focused on either the most experienced or the earliest stages of rowing with nothing in between. You likely know folks who are intermediate level rowers and scullers. Our upcoming webinar on 29th February is for you all.
VIP Day with Troy Howell is firmly aimed at advancing skill and confidence for intermediates. If you worry about flipping, find it challenging to back down, or turn the boat, or can’t get to the catch without being tense and nervous – then come along.
Details below – and forward this to your intermediate rowing friends.
Learn from the best
After hearing our podcast on backsplash I was reminded by a listener about the Piemenov twins (Nikolay and Yuriy). They were Olympic silver medalists in 1980 aged just 22 – described as the “Kiwi Pair” of their day. When observed training before the World Rowing Championships they did a drill where they tapped the water with a feathered blade at the catch, before squaring and placing it in the water. This drill was adapted and has morphed into the Slap Catches drill, which I describe on the podcast. Try it out.
Another week gone…
Rebecca
Our most recent podcast
Click the image to hear the podcast
A long lasting debate exists should the blade make a backsplash with the water on entry? We review what backsplash is, how to do it, teach it and when it’s a useful technique aide. Click the image to watch.
Boathouse Chat for the Weekend
Private boat insurance: I am not well versed in the insurance industry and want to make sure I don’t get ripped off. Does your insurance company reduce the value of your boat every few years on your insurance quote? Or is it based off of original purchased value? My boat was originally purchased in 2008 for $9000… my insurance quote has the value listed as $9k but there’s no way it is actually worth that now (despite inflation…). The insurance quote seems high to me, so I’m wondering if I need to tell them the value is lower? If my boat was stolen, would they give me $9k for a new one if that’s listed as the value, even if it’s technically not worth that much anymore? Any guidance is greatly appreciated!
Each rower in a crew has to move their share of the boat hull, riggers and oars plus whatever their body weighs. When you row in a single scull (which has a mass of of 14kg plus 5kg for sculls) each stroke you take has to move 19kg plus your own body weight.
In larger crew boats, It’s less because the mass of the shell is shared among more people. A 2x weighs 27kg (13.5kg per athlete) an eight weights 96kg (12kg each) but you also have to factor in the coxswain’s weight and add that to your share.
Does your weight affect boat speed?
The Rowing Biomechanics newsletter by Valery Kleshnev (who was a guest on our Rowing With Data webinar) explains this using the concept of “dead weight”. The question asked was in the context of a coxswain’s weight – but it applies to rowers too.
Drag caused by 1kg of extra dead weight per rower decreases the boat speed by 0.061% or 0.21 seconds over a 2k race in a time of 5min 40s.
And so for masters who race 1k the decrease in boat speed can be assumed to be the same 0.061%. As masters, our race times are more variable than a schoolboy eight, but if you can race 1km in 3 minutes 50 seconds, the equivalent increase in race time is 0.105 seconds over a 1000m race.
That may not seem like a lot of time, but it becomes quite significant (0.84 seconds) if you have eight athletes all carrying 1kg too much personal body weight….. [read more after subscribing].
Everything You Heard as a Novice is Wrong….Maybe was our working title for this event. Troy noticed when coaching intermediate athletes that many had a somewhat wrong-headed understanding of technique. He found that things taught to beginners were taken as the gold standard, becoming a mantra for many people. Yet, we all know that as you get more skilful then fine tuning occurs but these beginner concepts had not gotten updated.
We all know that when beginning a new skill, we’re taught the “basics”. Rowing is no different. What you learned in your learn to row and first years in the sport will have become the foundation of the movement pattern which you are continuing to practice. Troy Howell, Coach
Join us on 29th February
Join Troy Howell as he demonstrates the progression to get your rowing movement pattern up the skills ladder and what you (may) need to un-learn.
You will come away knowing how to build boat handling competence, comprehending how to move your body with the boat and an assessment of your current skill (beginner / intermediate / advanced) so that you can focus on what you need to learn next.
Hello again Reader
Across the world there are events at different times of year. When Marlene and I started this business we researched the major events for masters rowers in English-speaking countries. We designed the training programmes to cater for the majority using our standard training plans. Sometimes, these don’t exactly align with races you want to do.
We got this question from Michael
Do you by any chance have a training program for a single sculler taking part in a 16km head race?…
Please note:
This action will also remove this member from your connections and send a report to the site admin.
Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.
